Do Employers Have To Bow To Employees' Sacred Beliefs?

December 14, 1997|By David Lauter, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — As Prabhjot S. Kohli sees the matter, he has clearly been a victim of religious discrimination.

Two years after immigrating to Baltimore from India, Kohli applied for a job as a manager with Domino's Pizza. As a former sales manager for a large Indian pharmaceutical company, he had sterling qualifications.

As a Sikh, whose religion requires that its adherents not cut their hair, Kohli felt trapped. He offered to wear a net over his beard, but Domino's declined to alter its rule.

''After two years of being in this country, I found the best job, and it was slipping away,'' he recalled. He went to court, charging a violation of his rights.

''This is not a civil-rights issue'' as race would be, said company vice president Tim McIntyre. ''The color of a person's skin is not a choice, it's something we're born with. . . . Religion is a choice.''

But is it?

''That's not a view that any adherent of a religious faith could share,'' said Abba Cohen, Washington representative of the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel - one of several members of a broad-based coalition of religious organizations seeking to change the nation's laws about faith and the workplace.

''When it comes to people's religions, we don't view that as a 'choice.' Religion is part of what people are, who they are,'' Cohen said.

Disputes over religion and the job remain far less common than claims of racial or sexual discrimination, but while no definitive statistics exist, they appear to be on the increase, say government officials, representatives of religious groups and lawyers who defend businesses.

The nation is ''increasingly diverse; we're also a society that is increasingly both legal conscious and rights conscious,'' said Roberto L. Corrada, a University of Denver College of Law professor.

Add in a passel of new groups devoted to pressing the rights of the religious - particularly groups representing conservative Christians - and an increase in litigation comes as no surprise.

Federal law requires companies to make ''reasonable accommodations'' for workers' religious needs. But the Supreme Court has interpreted that standard to require companies to make accommodations only if doing so will not cost them any significant amount of money.

A few states provide a somewhat higher degree of protection to religious workers than the federal government does. In most disputes, however, if negotiations fail, the employer wins.

That may be about to change. Congress is considering legislation sponsored by Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, a conservative Republican, and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, a liberal Democrat, to require companies to do more to accommodate religious needs of workers. President Clinton's aides also are wrestling with the issue, seeking to find a legislative proposal he can offer.

Because the effort involves religion, it has drawn support from conservatives who normally oppose government regulation of business. Moreover, in a time when politicians want to emphasize their appreciation of ''values,'' the idea has considerable appeal.

Kohli's case raises a complex issue.

Is religion truly a ''choice'' - a category to which the law has traditionally given little protection - or is it something more intrinsic to a person's identity, deserving of greater accommodation?

The fact that white customers might prefer not to do business with blacks was once used as a defense of segregation in employment, but society for more than a generation has held that justification to be out of bounds. Should a customer's desire not to have pizza served by a bearded man be treated any differently if the beard is demanded by a person's faith?

If so, if customer preference is not allowed to override religious needs, how far should that principle extend?

Accommodating other things is comparatively simple, argues McIntyre. In the case of a disability, for example, ''it's clear, we can request a doctor's letter.

''But anyone can walk into one of our restaurants and say they have a sincere religious belief that they must wear torn jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt.''

Disputes over days off are the most common type of religious dispute to arise. Often they can be accommodated with job swaps and flexible schedules, employment law experts say.

A few years ago, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission waded into the debate, trying to craft a set of guidelines that would help companies draw a clear line between free religious expression and religious harassment. After receiving a deluge of mail expressing outrage, much of it from conservative Christians who feared the regulations would restrict speech too much, the agency gave up in dismay.